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WHAT A 

REPORTER MUST 

BE 

Jp 1 «/* «£* 

HELPS TO SUCCESS IX 
XEWSPAPER WORK 

J* w* ^ 

BY 
NEVADA DAVIS HITCHCOCK 

*£** *2r* Jr 

CLEVELAND, OHIO 

RALPH HITCHCOCK 

I900 



TWO COPIES RECEIVED. 

W%\ 1 1800 

l«ter of Cepfdgjflj 



SECOND COPY, 



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* MAY 14191 

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64859 

Copyright, 1900, by Ralph Hitchcock. 



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This little book is intended as a 
help to those who wish to engage 
in that interesting occupation, re- 
porting for a daily newspaper. It 
was written for young women as 
well as for young men, since sex 
makes practically no difference in 
the requirements of a reporter. 



What a Reporter must be 



What a Reporter must be 

It commonly has been supposed that 
newspaper men and newspaper women 
are born, not made. This is erroneous. 
Any man or woman of average intelli- 
gence and health may hope, through 
faithful application, to take up that most 
fascinating occupation, reporting, and 
gain an enviable degree of success. There 
are, however, certain qualities or traits 
of character which each aspirant should 
consider carefully before he determines 
to enter this field of labor. 

Loyalty — First and most important 
of these is loyalty. Unless a young man 
is sure that he will be unswervingly loyal 
to the paper which he may represent he 
should not entertain one thought of be- 
coming a reporter! A young woman 
proves no exception to the rule. Both 
may be required, even at the outset, to 
work under orders that are extremely dis- 
tasteful to them. Under such conditions, 
want of loyalty makes a reporter value- 
less to his paper. 

It is seldom that one needs to be a 
knight of chivalry to prove his loyalty. 
In fact a reporter may do many things 



highly incompatible with his own super- 
fine notions of courtesy. For his paper 
he may do that which he would not do 
for himself. He may deem it necessary, 
at times, to peek over transoms, listen at 
keyholes, hang on window sills and 
prowl around dooryards in order to get 
the "news" he has been sent after by his 
city editor. Ho may even conceal his 
identity, assume a false name and deny 
his business when he is working up an 
item. But in the office he must give a 
full and truthful account to his editor. 
He must describe conditions exactly as he 
found them, no matter what influences 
may have been brought to bear upon him 
to induce him to suppress or pervert the 
facts, A woman is, perhaps, more likely 
to prove disloyal than a man because her 
sympathies are more easily enlisted. 
Tears and pitiful entreaties may cause her 
to waver, but she should present a true 
statement of facts to her editor and let 
him decide what is to be published and 
what shall be suppressed. 

Lest some of the methods of getting 
news referred to in the preceding para- 
graph be considered questionable, I 
would add that the supposed necessity 
for such methods is growing less every 



day. The occupation of a reporter is now 
recognized everywhere as one that 
conflicts with no man's sense of honor. 

Through loyalty a reporter keeps 
the confidence of his editor and is given 
important assignments. He may not be 
able to write as cleverly as others and he 
may not be as brilliantly original, but if he 
can be depended upon to use his best 
efforts in serving his employers his suc- 
cess is sure. The reason for this is plain. 
An editor must of necessity rely upon the 
word of the reporter for the truth of the 
news items. 

On the so-called sensational papers 
there are editors who distort reports, but 
even on these papers the most valued 
reporter is he who tells his editor exact 
conditions of affairs. If the editor wants 
a condition enlarged he instructs the 
reporter accordingly, acting upon the 
statement that this loyal worker has but 
just given to him. Some high-priced 
reporters exaggerate, or enlarge on facts 
in accounts subsequently given to the 
public as true, but, of this class of 
reporters, those who are termed successful 
write "fake'* upon their perverted copy 
before they hand it to their editor. 
The reporter who "fakes" (distorts 



or manufactures) without his editor's 
cognizance cannot hold a position long 
upon any paper. 

If the reporter suppresses facts, he 
places his paper at a disadvantage with 
its rivals. If he perverts his reports he 
may lead his editor to publish articles 
which may involve the paper in that 
newspaper office bugaboo, a libel suit, 
or cause it to lose thousands of subscribers. 

It is the business of a reporter, as 
his name indicates, to report. The 
responsibility of publication rests with 
the editor. To the editor alone belongs 
the power of presenting to the public 
statements which deviate from facts. 

As an incentive to the reporter him- 
self, loyalty is invaluable. To feel that 
he will be true to his paper at any cost 
will give him necessary enthusiasm, a 
clear head and a stout heart. 

News Sense — The indications are 
that the newspaper of the future will 
devote itself exclusively to the publica- 
tion of news. Special features gradually 
are being discarded except by the Sunday 
papers. A regular staff, moreover, is 
employed to prepare these feature stories. 
The ordinary reporter, therefore, will 
devote himself more and more to news 



io 



gathering. To do this properly he must 
have a well defined news sense, or a 
"nose for news" as newspaper workers 
say. That is, the reporter must be able 
to discriminate between what is interest- 
ing and what is not, in the eyes of the 
public. He himself may have no interest 
whatever in the fact that Nancy Jones 
eloped with John Smith but he must be 
able to judge what proportion of the 
readers of his paper are likely to be 
interested in the elopement. 

The reporter must be able to see 
instantly that which is startling either 
from its deep reaching effects, from the 
prominence of the persons affected, or 
from the rarity of the occurrence. For 
example, an accident may be of thrilling 
interest to a whole community because 
scores of lives are lost in a brief space of 
time. Again, an accident where but one 
person is injured may take precedence 
in a news sense over another where 
several deaths occur. For instance, if a 
statesman, a leader of congress, known 
to everyone in the United States, and to 
many on foreign shores, should meet 
with a serious, perhaps fatal accident, 
more readers would be interested in 
reading a full report of that than would 



ii 



be in learning the details of a boiler ex- 
plosion where a half dozen men unknown 
to the world beyond the limits of their 
own little circles, are killed. An accident 
that is important in a news sense on 
account of the rarity of its occurrence is 
exemplified in the case of a milkman 
who was driving alongside a vat of 
boiling tar, used in paving a street, when 
a cable car struck his wagon and tossed 
him into the tar, where he died before 
he could be extricated. 

A reporter who has a well developed 
sense of news will follow out even a hint 
of such cases as those I have just 
mentioned, or others of similar impor- 
tance, as keenly as a blood hound runs 
over the trail of a fugitive. 

Oftentimes a reporter gains a clue 
to a great piece of news from the casual 
remark of some one he is interviewing 
on a comparatively trivial subject. Now 
if the news sense be wanting the words 
which give the hint fall on deaf ears and 
the reporter will have lost his opportunity 
to secure the important information. 

Two young women, reporters on 
New York daily newspapers, were 
detailed by their respective editors to 
describe Children's Day exercises in the 



12 



Harlem Sunday schools. They chanced 
to go over the ground together. In one 
of the churches a conversation was 
overheard relative to the evening services, 
when a clergyman and twelve of his 
followers were to renounce their faith 
and become members of a new denomi- 
nation. One of the reporters had a 
"nose for news" and recognized the 
importance of the information. She 
hastily finished the work in hand, went 
to the pastor of the church, gained the 
names of the clergyman and his followers 
as well as other particulars, returned to 
the office of her paper and submitted a 
complete report to her editor. As a 
consequence, in addition to writing her 
account of Children's Day, she had the 
opportunity to prepare a leading article 
for the next morning's issue and enabled 
her paper to publish news that its rivals 
did not have, or, in newspaper parlance, 
she secured a "beat" or "scoop." This 
was because she recognized that the 
chance information was of far more 
importance than the work to which she 
had been assigned. Her companion was 
without this news sense. She paid no 
attention to the conversation that she 
heard in the church but went painstak- 



13 



ingly on with the duties which had been 
apportioned to her. She is still reporting 
at fifteen dollars a week while the first 
young woman has won her way to the 
head of a department on her paper. 

The person who has this news sense 
as a natural gift has the advantage over 
his fellow reporters in the beginning of 
his career. He may follow a short and 
easy path to success. But the man or 
woman who wishes to become a reporter 
and who does not have this news sense 
inborn need not be discouraged. The 
ability to scent news can be acquired by 
diligent application and observation. 
The road to success may be steeper and 
longer but it is no less sure. 

Perseverance — It is an unwritten 
rule of the newspaper office that a 
reporter is not expected to return until 
he has verified and secured the details of 
the news item he is sent out to investigate, 
or is able fully to satisfy his editors that 
there is no foundation for the rumor. 
The reporter must take for his daily rule 
that ancient saying: "If at first you 
don't succeed, try, try, again." He must 
not acknowledge, even to himself, that 
there is such a thing as failure. When 
he has tried all the ordinary means of 



H 



securing the desired information without 
success he begins to devise new methods. - 
He weighs every opportunity that chance 
throws in his path. He tries a sudden 
sally, an unexpected question or a shrewd 
guess. No matter how often he seems 
to be defeated, he plots and plans with 
the calm assurance in his mind that if 
there is any important bit of news in the 
case he will be sure to get it. 

To do this he sometimes works all 
day and all night. He goes without his 
regular meals, snatching a bite from a 
sandwich and gulping down a cup of 
coffee if he gets a chance. Bodily 
fatigue and mental weariness are un- 
noticed. Life even may be jeopardized 
in the reporter's enthusiasm. 

Perseverance also means the ability 
to pass hours of inaction, to be on watch 
or guard half a day or longer. This is 
sometimes harder to do than to work as 
hard as one's powers permit. It is an 
art to be able to wait idly from two to 
three hours in the ante-office of some 
great man and, when finally admitted to 
his presence, to appear as unwearied and 
bright as if there had not been a moment's 
delay. 



15 



The reporter must be persevering in 
other ways as well as in gathering the 
material for the news item. He should 
constantly try to improve his copy. He 
should endeavor to be as correct as 
possible. He may find in writing 
up a certain article that there is doubt in 
regard to the spelling of a name, or 
about the date of a certain occurrence. It 
is his duty to search records until he has 
decisive proof in favor of one way or the 
other, or has exhausted his resources. 

It must be understood of course that 
in cases of great haste, where the report 
of an accident or similar piece of news 
must be written within a limited number 
of minutes to insure its appearance in an 
edition of the paper which is almost 
ready to go to press, the reporter cannot 
exercise such minute care. But the 
ordinary work of a reporter, while per- 
formed as quickly as possible, requires 
painstaking perseverance in its prepara- 
tion. This is recognized on some of the 
greatest dailies when fines are .imposed 
for mistakes in spelling proper names 
and when suspensions are made for the 
misuse of titles or for similar offenses. 

The efficient reporter early learns 
the importance of perseverance. He 



16 



wastes no time in idle speculation but at 
once gives his best efforts and thoughts 
to the task in hand. Through the same 
habit he becomes able to hand in perfect 
copy. To the old reporter, perseverance 
has made molehills of many things which 
seemed mountains to him as a new 
reporter. 

Observation — It is not enough, 
however, to scent out a news item, and 
to persistently persevere in getting a 
report of it. It must be written up in a 
manner which will catch and hold the 
attention of the reader. The reporter 
can employ no better agent for this 
purpose than the habit of close 
observation. Those who train themselves 
to see and hear the most will .have the 
greatest fund of information. From this 
fund they will be able to draw the 
material for the touch of pathos, the 
flash of humor, or the fine, but concise 
description which distinguishes the well 
written article from the mediocre one. 

It is the ability to see beyond the 
point of view of the ordinary observer 
that marks the firstclass reporter. He 
not only sees what has happened, for 
instance, but he also observes the causes 
which led to the occurrence and the 



17 



manner in which it took place. In fact, 
through observation, he takes a series of 
mental photographs which afterward 
pass before his analytical faculties like 
the pictures of the kinetoscope. In 
writing his report he thus is able to choose 
the points which will be of most interest 
to the public. 

Observation serves the reporter a 
double purpose when he once has gained 
the habit. Aside from being necessary 
to a well written report it is helpful as a 
news gathering ally. It teaches the 
reporter to investigate anything which 
is out of the ordinary in any particular. 
Every peculiarity, mechanical, natural, 
or artificial is based upon some reason. 
This reason is interesting almost nine 
times out of ten, even if the peculiarity 
itself is not. To the person who has 
acquired the habit of exact observation 
the slightest deviation from the ordinary 
is at once apparent. The next step is to 
find out why such a thing is, or has 
happened and what effect it will have in 
the future. Then the reporter has his 
news item in a nutshell. 

Education — A college education is 
a great advantage to any one who 
wishes to become a reporter. It is not 

18 



essential, however, to success in the 
reportorial line. In fact, there are cases 
where both men and women have risen 
to enviable positions, with unusual 
salaries, who had at the outset but the 
mere rudiments of an education. In some 
other cases there are reporters whose 
written matter requires the most careful 
handling by the copy readers to weed 
out mistakes in grammar, orthography 
and punctuation. Such reporters never 
have overcome the disadvantages of a too 
limited education, yet their superior news 
sense enables them to retain positions on 
the best papers. 

It must not be supposed for a 
moment, though, that lack of education 
is in favor of the would-be reporter just 
because some have succeeded without 
the advantages of proper training. 
Perhaps with thorough education these 
same persons might have been distin- 
guished in the highest fields of literature. 

A reporter ought to have a good 
high school training, or its equivalent, 
in practical knowledge of language, 
literature and science. He should be 
able to write sentences grammatically, 
to spell correctly and to punctuate 
properly. With so much of an education 



19 



as the foundation it is not difficult to 
acquire all else that is necessary. It must 
be remembered that not the number of 
books which the student pores over but 
the amount of knowledge he acquires 
and retains is the measure of his 
education, 

A reporter is a constant student. 
He gives his attention to all subjects. 
One day he may be assigned to prepare 
an article on a filtration plant. To do 
this he must master the principles upon 
which the plant in question works, know 
how it differs from other filtration plants 
and so on until he has a complete 
knowledge of filtration. The next day 
he may be sent to report a horse show or 
a lecture on theosophy. In either case 
he must learn much in order to write a 
little intelligently. 

The college bred man, or woman, 
for this reason, has the advantage in 
doing reportorial work. He has a 
broader foundation to build upon. His 
fund of information is deeper and it is 
not necessary for him to consult diction- 
aries, encyclopedias and atlases so often 
as the reporter without college training 
must do. The college man brings a 
better disciplined mind to bear upon his 



20 



work. Yet I would emphasize the 
statement made above that lack of edu- 
cation need debar no one from the busi- 
ness of a reporter. With an average 
amount of brains and pluck that hin- 
derance to success may be removed. 

Practical Hints — Be modest. The 
forward reporter may flourish for a time 
but his downfall is certain. 

Be gentlemanly. Courtesy wins 
favor, and popularity will bring more 
news items than rude keenness can 
ferret out. 

Be womanly. An aggressive manner 
is even more disagreeable in woman than 
in man. A dignified yet frank woman can 
walk in any path of life she may choose 
without fearing unpleasant experiences. 
By womanly is not meant womanish. 
Many women stand in their own path to 
success by relying on the idea that they 
are women and therefore to be treated 
with indulgence, instead of recognizing 
that merit and the ability to do real work 
are the true factors which will enable 
them successfully to compete with their 
fellow reporters. 

Be honest. Where trickery wins 
one piece of news straight forwardness 
gains a dozen. 



21 



Be frank. Deal openly with the 
world but be reserved in regard to 
personal affairs and office business. 

Carefully weigh the question of 
becoming a reporter. Consider on one 
hand that a reporter ought to have a 
brain of steel, a frame of iron, an 
unswerving will, indomitable pluck and 
unflinching courage. On the other hand 
he will find no other business more 
fascinating, more broad in scope or 
more generally instructive. The remun- 
eration is fair. An ordinary reporter 
earns as much as the average bank clerk 
and a good one much more. If you 
decide to become a reporter stick to your 
business until you make a success of it. 



LrfC. 

22 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



in 

022 204 673 7 



!! 



Conservation Resources 
Lig-Free® Type I 
Ph 8.5, Buffered 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



022 204 673 7 I 



